Universal Index
Every major team and national side on one weekly scale, with our own national-team Elo.
source: the site's own Elo engines
The index's database could not be read for this build, so its coverage is not shown. The page tries again within the hour.
What it is for
The question this dataset answers, and the pages built from it.
To compare teams that never meet: a Tuesday in 1977 and a Tuesday in 2026, an NBA side and a Bundesliga club, read on the same axis. The nations half carries the site's own Football Elo, which the international hubs show in place of the FIFA ranking.
For every league and every Tuesday, z is how far a team's rating stands above its own league's field, mapped through the league's history to a normal quantile; Universal = 1500 + 100z. A team's number decays toward the field while it is idle.
On the site:The Universal IndexThe Universal Index: Nations
Data dictionary
Every field the public pages show: its key in the data, what it means, its unit and how often it is filled.
How filled is counted
Filled is the share of rows that carry a value for the field. For counts and money a second line gives the share that is not zero, because a zero there means none recorded rather than a missing value. A share never rounds up to 100% unless every row is filled.
| Field | Meaning | Unit | Filled |
|---|---|---|---|
| Weekas_ofdate | The snapshot date: a Tuesday for the weekly history. | date | — |
| Rankrank_allposition | Position on that week's board across every league, by Universal score. | position | — |
| Teamdisplaytext | The team's era-correct name for that week. | text | — |
| League or codeleaguecode | The league (clubs) or sport and gender (nations) the team is rated in. | code | — |
| Universaluniversalpoints | 1500 + 100z: the team's standing against its own league's field, on the shared scale. | points | — |
| zzz-score | Standard deviations above or below the league's field, after idle decay. | z-score | — |
| Elo or ratingelorating points | The raw rating the standing is computed from: Elo, or the ICC rating for cricket. | rating points | — |
| League rankrank_in_leagueposition | Position within the team's own league or code that week. | position | — |
| Days idledays_idledays | Days since the team's last game. | days | — |
| Decaydecayfactor 0 to 1 | The idle-decay factor applied to z (1 = none). | factor 0 to 1 | — |
| Seasonseasonyear | The season the week belongs to (clubs). | year | — |
| In seasonin_seasonyes or no | Whether the team's league was playing that week (clubs). | yes or no | — |
| Last gamelast_gamedate | The date of the side's latest match (nations). | date | — |
| Suspendedsuspendedyes or no | Whether the side is under an international suspension (nations). | yes or no | — |
Method
The short version; the full method lives on the pages linked below.
TestedBuilt by the same engine as the Universal Index, which passes its order and zero-sum property tests. About the tiers
- The pool is every team of a league with a game in the trailing 365 days; the yardstick is pooled over in-season weeks in the trailing five seasons, so a six-club NHL and a 32-team NFL share one axis.
- A team's number holds for a grace period after its last game, then decays exponentially toward the field so that on opening day it equals the engine's own carry-over.
- National sides are measured against the top eight eligible sides each week; cricket carries the ICC rating, every other code the site's own Elo.
- The daily snapshot is the board; the Tuesday build is the one the history keeps, so the time machine and the peaks are weekly.
Full method:Where these numbers come fromAgainst Expectation, the match model underneath
Changelog
Release notes that mention this dataset, from the public log at /updates.
- Tennis has left the Universal Index nations board: a national total of Grand Slam places was too aggregate for a view of national sides.
- A new Games page under Predictions lists every rated fixture for the next two weeks, day by day, with our odds and the market's; the Universal Index page keeps only its No.1 forecast.
- Tennis joins the Universal Index Nations board: every Grand Slam singles draw since the 1968 French Open, rated by how far each nation's players went.
- Team, country and competition pages show what happens next, with upcoming match odds on the Universal Index and the next number one.
- Athletics joins the Universal Index, scored from every Olympic and World Championships final since 1948, beside a new Strength now table of countries across all codes.
- The Universal Index adds national basketball, hockey, handball, volleyball and baseball, associate cricket and tier-two rugby sides, and IPL franchises; our Elo now replaces the FIBA and World Rugby rankings.
Sources
- MLB, NFL, NBA and NHL from this site's Elo spines
- Club football from this site's unified club Elo and club season hub
- The IPL from this site's IPL Elo (from 2008)
- International results for the national codes, rated by this site's engines
- ICC team ratings, the cricket rating of record
Rights and reuse
Our own model output, read from the site's database and shown as pages. There is no file to download: the index is never written to public/data. The ICC ratings used for cricket stay with the ICC.